Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Requiem for UK fathers

The British Parliament just voted out the fathers. Times Online reports that:

Single women and lesbian couples won landmark parental rights last night as MPs voted to remove the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will replace the rule with a “need for supportive parenting” after opponents were defeated in two votes by unexpectedly wide margins.

The Government had been prepared for defeat but won the free votes by majorities of 75 and 68. The decisions mean that the legislation will grant the most significant extension to homosexual family rights since gay adoption was sanctioned.

It will stop fertility clinics turning away lesbians and single women because their children will not have a father or male role model. While the current law does not block such therapy, it is sometimes used to justify refusals.

It was bad enough that the UK pushed for IVF and related acts in the Bill in question. It is even worse now as "fathers" are deemed insignificant -- even as that other "half" of the equation is needed to have a child. Then again, this is just an off-shoot, an expected consequence of the tampering of the natural order.

And the proposal to lower the limit for abortions (from the legal 24 weeks), well, 24 weeks it still is.

So what can they think of next, human-animal hybrid embryos? Oh, shoots, they actually thought of that too. Here.